I have seen ample editions of the Economist that chide Barack Obama for social spending, and on the next page, chide him for NOT being the traditional fiscal conservative. Then, looking at the Economists' stats on the back pages that only weigh wealth, how can we take such reports seriously. Poverty is one thing, but the impact of poverty is quite another. Being poor is only a crime in plutocratic oligarchies, and this is the irony that I often see in the pages of this magazine.

The last time I was at DMV I was in a room full of the poor. In my 2 hours wait, I got a lot of reading done and learned new things. All they did was complain. They did pause to watch a get rich info commercial.

This is what I have been highlighting since Sunday in response to Mr Tyson De Grasse Meme in which he said The most Educated states went Democratic and highlighted NY, Mass and CA. This is a ticking time bomb.

''One million Grasse's and one million Obama's in a decade is the new slogan that Democrats should follow. With all the rich states Obama took, within those 'the most educated and prosperous counties' went Republican. The 'charge' that rural America votes Republican is so bewildering and so conceited, it is the 'ghettoised' part that Democrats feed through irresponsible welfare that needs to be tackled through a new deal or an initiative of a Huge Human Development and a massive retraining effort.

Democrats instead of crowing should look at the new methods of brining disenfranchised mainstream American into what America is all about incentive and success.

Yes, these counties are sparsely populated, but all major towns with extreme pockets of poverty go to Democrats, they need to do something about them, not just like feudal to get their votes and send some opium of welfare there way is not good enough, it has to be retraining of these disenfranchised majority the first priority of the Democrats. The most under privileged voted Democrats all educated counties predominantly were Republicans.

Yes, your job is to make them educated and first class citizens amongst this demographic pathetic divide that is increasing at gods speed. Hot soup and feeding on the election day is just not good enough, don't give them fish to eat train them to catch fish.

Are 'most educated Americans' living in the hearts of the city?

''It’s one thing for a Democratic presidential candidate to dominate a Democratic city like Philadelphia, but check out this head-spinning figure: In 59 voting divisions in the city, Mitt Romney received not one vote. Zero. Zilch.

Of course, these districts are in the deep inner-city areas of Philadelphia. Just one look at the county-by-county map of the past election, and you will see that these areas are a dark blue. However, is it really commonplace for numbers like this? The report continues:

Still, was there not one contrarian voter in those 59 divisions, where unofficial vote tallies have President Obama outscoring Romney by a combined 19,605 to 0?

The unanimous support for Obama in these Philadelphia neighbourhoods – clustered in almost exclusively black sections of West and North Philadelphia.''If not attended these inner cities are a ticking time bomb.

Yeah. When your job gets shipped out to China someday I hope you'll go back to school to learn how to design integrated circuits so that you can keep your job.

As a matter of fact, it is not called throwing money at the poor. It is called the social contract. People work to give themselves some acceptable level of life. When our national wealth trebled from 1980 to 2012 I wonder why is it now that we can't seem to afford what we are able to do then. The Germans and the Swedes seem to do this just fine with a better economy than ours.

Nobody is arguing whether a safety net should be provided but how much and how. what is the most efficient way to move people out of poverty? In my opinion, cash incentive from government may be the least effective method

The most efficient way is to money. It is the cheapest which is why the GOP wants to give vouchers an let you fend for yourself. The best way is to talk about services. Free healthcare(but control cost with single payor). Free education(to ensure equal opportunities but control enrollment). Eliminate mortgage deduction (to bring housing prices lower along with expansion of public housing not concentrated in projects.). Don't believe me. This is what I meant by looking at the Germans.

the incentive is to find a better job for you or your next generation if it is already too late for you already. You cannot expect other people give you a decent life, you need to earn it. I still remember that famous Kennedy line “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

For the next two weeks, a magical mist descends over the nation. NO ONE AT ALL CAN DO ANY LOW PAID WORK. Anyone who tries to perform a task that is only paid at minimum wage, falls over dead. No low wage work at all gets done, anywhere, for two whole weeks. What would this nation look like?

No toilets would get cleaned anywhere. No diapers would be changed. No babies in day care would be supervised or fed. No floors would be scrubbed, no shelves stocked, no cash registers rung or burgers flipped. Old people in nursing homes and assisted living homes, and the housebound elderly, would starve and get bedsores for two weeks because no one would cook, no one would help them up or help them get dressed, no one would change their Depends. At the vet, no one would walk your dog or clean its cage. No one would be there to hold your pet or check you in the door...all low wage work. Wal-Mart would certainly be in a quandary, as would McDonald's, and all those huge corporations whose workers need SNAP to eat while their CEO's make millions and millions. Many houses would go uncleaned, a lot of food would go uncooked. Trash would pile up everywhere. There would be nobody running 7-11. Nobody would get waited on at a restaurant anywhere. The WHOLE DAMN NATION would come to a SCREECHING halt.

Now, isn't that interesting? The nation can't function unless those low-paid people are there every day, working, while at the very same time we spit on these people, call them lazy, and because their jobs are not impressive for us we call them bad people of low character who do not deserve to eat or live indoors--because when we fail to pay a living wage, that is really what we're saying, isn't it? "We want you to do this work, but you're really not worth a living **** and we certainly aren't going to pay you enough to stay alive!"

And here you are, with the literal meaning of the words you just wrote saying that these people who keep everything going, do not deserve to earn enough to live. That these people, who work damn hard every day at two or three jobs, because one won't pay for both rent and food, are somehow "expecting other people to GIVE them a decent life" and that they "aren't earning anything."

Tell you what. You live a week or two in the life of anyone working at or near minimum wage, and then we'll talk about whether you feel like you deserve enough to eat and live indoors or not.

WTF? People with your attitude sicken me. Wake up. EVERY job makes a contribution, and EVERY worker, EVERY human making that contribution of work in our society, deserves enough pay to eat and live indoors.

Excellent reportage supported by good data giving a broad picture of the situation. During the relatively benign years prior to the crash stories like these were still commonplace. Thats why to get at the source of these problems you have to go back decades and the whole argument of trickle-down economics.
Globalisation as an explanation is a copout implying their are no remedies. Shabby policies & a "war on the poor" is a better reason. If Globalisation was the true factor , poverty rates would be similiar in all developed countries and they are not.
Why have productivity & competitivity gone up while wages have stayed stagnant over a 30-yr period?

>>"cWhy have productivity & competitivity gone up while wages have stayed stagnant over a 30-yr period?"
Answer:
Automation of all kinds.....companies rather pay for automation than higher wages.
Automation removes or reduces the need for many skill labor.
Many factory jobs are monkey see,monkey do type work due to automation.
In addition, the factory worker cannot keep up with the speed of production lines while automation can easily do all of that plus and then some.....!

Sound plausible except it is wrong. Automation has always allowed for more productivity from the earliest days of industrialization. What made the middle class is an interest in improving the livelihood of the masses. Mr. Ford did this by paying his autoworkers a wage that was 2.5x the normal of the day. His argument was that he wanted to make sure his workers can afford his cars. He didn't have to do this. He could have hoarded his money and do it under the cover that he earned it. But he didn't. The result was the beginning of the Middle Class.

Improving the livelihood of the masses is great. I am all for it.
Yes, I agree companies can pay their workers a little more.
In fact, we are subsidizing the likes of Wal-Mart, Target, Mom & Pop stores, McDonalds, Burger Kings... etc...just about all lower wages industry.... via medicaid and food stamps due to their poverty level wages. This directly benefits the rich. The end result is like a HUGE tax break for corporate owner class, i.e. the rich.

As for Ford paying more....back then....One problem is that back then there is not much trade globalization and technology is dominated by the West. Thus competition is limited. Now, competition is fiercer.
Here in the West, we are forever on the losing side, whenever we have a product that can easily be made elsewhere.
This alternative choice of production along with automation are the main causes of wage pressure.

This has been going on for 30+ years..... the degradation of middle class here continues and will remain so till the rest of the world's income is par with the West.

Even good paying jobs are being outsourced. Jobs involving software engineering, one of many examples. All this is because of unequal playing fields..... and I do not have a solution.....

You are missing the point. Trickle-down economics was sold on the basis that improved competitivity & production and workers,capital & management will share in the economic benefits.
We still have millions of workers (if only in service industries). No business can operate even the most automated without them. So you have to conclude that the deal was offered in bad faith.

As usual, The Economist focuses on some things and ignores others. In the U.S. Welfare payments (the Dole) are handled by County/State governments, not the Federal government which was the focus of the article. California, where I live, spends billions of dollars in welfare payments (go to the State of California web site for details). The county where I live owns thousands of homes where it places people in extreme need. Tax free . . .

The person in the story who could make only $32,000 a year would be among the 40% of all American households which PAY NO FEDERAL INCOME TAX. That's right. No tax. No VAT. Only local sales tax on consumer items and a small amount in Social Security Tax. And in California there would be no State income taxes either. In the EU, the poor pay the regressive 20%+ VAT on virtually all products and many services. Some products/countries have a higher VAT.

I am not saying enough is done for the poor, but how much is enough? Who will pay for it? Why work if the government is going to give you $50,000 a year? Who will support NATO? Or defend the EU's oil supplies?

Personally, I would rather pay the money to the poor and let the EU take care of itself. Seriously. I think that would be a better choice. Don't you?

You might want to try to bring your kid for a stay in a public housing some day.

As for VAT. Indeed it is regressive which is why the GOP keeps wanting to push for those taxes.

How much is enough? Money is not the answer you are right. It is services that is important. So start with free healthcare (no one's fault to get sick). Free education (give everyone a equal chance). Public housing like Singapore (85% of the population live in these and they have a much higher GDP per capita compared to us). After that make sure the the minimum wage is enough for food and clothing. No entertainment budget. How's that for a start?

Let us face reality. B & M are above the poor in America. Their interest is only for their vote and is certainly not to invite them to the WH or to be on AF1. The more the poor are dependent, the stronger the hand that feeds is to their advantage. Sorry but your poor are simply the poor and we newly crowned no longer need you trash. Hasta la vista baby!!!

As the article says, there are more poor whites than any other racial group. But the politically acceptable stereotype is that whites are rich at the expense of the colored races. This of course is crap, but it is used to manipulate the colored races and play on the emotions of a certain white demographic. Like NPR and PBS programming, The Economist does have to sell itself.

I think the serious issue is not whether some people fail, and end up poor. The issue is how possible is it for someone to get out of poverty once there. That is, can you fail, and recover? If your parents failed, can you succeed? Currently, there is a fair amount of evidence that the answer to both questions is: It's not totally impossible, but the odds are pretty long against it.

I have spent considerable time among some very poor people. Generalizations are just that, but in general they make poor decisions, spend their money unwisely, and then repeat the process. When I was poor I spent my evenings at the local Community College, avoided spending anything I did not need to, and learned computer programming. My room mates watched TV and drank beer. I now live in a very nice city in a middle class home (paid for) and have no debt. My old room mates are doing the same things they did years ago. I concluded that they ARE poor, and I simply was "short of funds" for a few years. I suspect readers of The Economist understand what I am implying . . .

This argument we hear everyday. I wonder if you've ever come upon a subject you simply can't master. You can probably make lots of money if you know how to design computers instead of just being a drone writing some low level programs. Why don't you do that? I know lots of hardworking people who can build a nice house but can't design ICs no matter how many courses they take at the local community college. Your kind of chauvinism I hear everyday--usually from people just barely above the poverty line themselves sneering at the "poor dumb lazy asses" who are just below that line.

The best charity is not to give a man a fish (ie: welfare), but to teach a man *HOW* to fish (ie: job training).

In the past, that used to be handled by employers.

Unfortunately, it's now so expensive and risky for employers to hire new workers that they are unwilling to chance a new employee that may/may not stick around for the employer to recoup the cost of training.

In the 1970's employers still trained people like me. Now, employers do not train anyone but insist on fully educated and trained people for entry-level positions. Then they complain that they can't get the people they need and apply to import workers from China or India. If the country is not going to be loyal to its citizens, then why should its citizens be loyal to it?

...and maybe if those employers showed a little loyalty to their employees instead of laying them off , reducing compensation, and denying bonuses for superior work as the 'first option' to increasing profitability perhaps those folks might stick around once they are trained. That sword cuts both ways.

Not to mention all of the 'global corporations' want someone else to pick up the tab for education/training of good workers. "Oh no we can't pay a high corporate tax because that would reduce our profit/stock price, thus reducing C-suite senior managers bonuses/compensation, but we just can't find any solid workers in the USA so we need to import them from other countries'... hmm... something just doesn't add up there...

...and they don't want to pay enough that the worker they hire can a.) eat, b.) live indoors, and c.) pay off the cost of the debt they borrowed in order to get the education without which the employer would not have hired him.

Interesting article; good to have such personal stories to show what poverty in the US looks like.

The comments are also very interesting, for the perspective of a European-born like me. Americans strongly emphasize personal responsibility and seem confined to seeing this as a problem for individuals.

You read things like "Single-motherhood in the States is, rather, almost always the result of poor personal decisions." But this ignores that if in one society, many more people make such 'personal decisions' compared to another, there must be structural differences between those societies.

Those differences are not likely to be genetic. They could be cultural, and they could be 'materialist'. I tend to think that it's the interaction between those two, with long-standing poverty across generations leading to a culture of poverty. And a culture of blaming individuals reinforcing that cycle.

But I think the solutions are mostly in the materialist sphere. Telling teenagers not to have sex while offering them little to advance their lot won't do a lot of good.

In contrast, universal health care of a decent standard will directly help both Ms Dunham and Ms Hamilton. Good education and after-school care will give their children chances in life. Good, affordable public transport helps people who can't afford a car.

Of course, in order to pay for such 'luxuries' (which are considered basic amenities in other developed countries), Americans will have to give up the myth that government is invariably bad and that lowering taxes on the richer segments of society helps economic growth and somehow helps the poor. That is, the US needs to get rid of ideological blinkers (that are partly biblical in origin).

Not "partly biblical in origin", but entirely "biblical in origin". The US has developed a particularly corrupt form of Calvinism which thinks that wealth shows that God favors you; that that poverty must be a moral failing and sign of God's disfavor. Niall Ferguson discusses this well. To real theologians, its called the prosperity gospel. Interestingly, where it holds forth politically the strongest- the now solidly deep red GOP American South- is also the greatest concentration of persistent poverty. So much for that biblical theory of wealth. It took a Jewish comedian from Minnesota to capture this so well, with his "Supply-Side Jesus" cartoon (Google if you don't know this one).

American corporate and finance business management would never have been able to accomplish the destitution of so many without this fig leaf. I recently saw a PBS news show on American manufacturing, showing one factory business run by an American and another (even larger corporate) one run by a German CEO. THe American one spouted about "training not being my business", while the German one said exactly the opposite. The American one was griping he could not expand production, while the German run one WAS expanding production. Their enterprises were not disimilar in terms of intermediate goods produced, so that was not a factor. Rather says it all.

I agree with some of what you said, but we have to remember that The Economist may not be telling the whole story of the people described. The details may not show them as exactly "victims."

Also, since 1987 no one can be turned-away from any hospital emergency room for any reason. Any reason. Everyone gets the same care by law. If not, they can sue. And in all honesty, the poor have little to take so the care ends-up being free. I know because I have family members who have run up thousands of dollars in hospital expenses with little downside.

I am not saying this is the best way as I would provide universal care, but the care in my local hospital is, I will wager, at least as good as the average EU hospital; probably superior. Just walk in the door. Not great, but not the end of the world either.

The downside of using the emergency room as a form of national healthcare is that it is much cheaper to treat a problem BEFORE it esclates into an emergency. The costs of emergency treatment that poor people cannot pay for themselves end up getting picked up by the other patients and that's part of the reason why the USA has the most expensive healthcare in the world.

You're not serious. Sound like some kid whose only engagement with the healthcare system is a broken ankle or a urinary tract infection. Try managing cancer, heart failure, arthritis, diabetes or high blood pressure through the emergency room.

Really?? I thought it was the recession, brought about by the Wealthy Wall Street Casino, which lost millions their homes and jobs. What should we have done, let these people go naked and homeless and just starve? Since clearly the entire recession of 2008 was all, all their fault and the wealthy and powerful had nothing to do with it!

America does not do enough for its poor. There is no reason why food, clothing and shelter cannot be provided to any and all of America's poor. America has a vast excess of housing, produces food extremely cheaply, and can import clothing from China for a pittance. America has no excuse whatsoever for not caring fully for its poor.

Mr. Obama, while African American, is in fact a member of the elite. Private schools from a young age, Ivy League colleges, and elite associations. He does not reflect a great understanding of the plight of America's poor -- nor doe he seem to be able to cause his administration to do something so simple as getting sufficient gasoline supplies to the New York area.

Huh? President Obama did NOT grow up a 'member of the elite'. He was a member of a single parent household most of his life frequently living with his grandmother to allow his mother to save money. He did not go to 'private schools' as a child.

Yep, those 'elite associations' all right. Like the work he did in Chicago before entering politics... those sure are the 'elite' all right. Oh.. wait... no actually those weren't the elite but some of the folks this article is disucssing.

Ivy League college called Harvard he got into based on hard work, good grades, and the Affirmative Action program. Like the newest Supreme Court Justice, but don't let the facts interfere with your prejudice. Feel free; after all it is a free country. Of course those freedoms were defended primarily in the trenches by the 'lower class' and 'ethnic minority' troops who provided a significantly higher percentage of soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines than they represented in the population, but again... don't let that interfere with a good old-fashioned ignorant prejudicial rant.

3800 students in K-12 with almost 15% receiving tuition assistance? No it is not an 'elite private school'. It is the largest independent school in America. Also remember admittance is NOT simply monetarily based. You have to 'make the grade' academically to be allowed to attend, and President Obama did not start attending until he was 10 years of age, thus went there for a few years as a 'child' and then essentially attended 'high school' there. It IS a college preparatory school that, agreed, is not state affiliated, but to portray it as some 'posh day academy' attended by the 'elite' is not accurate.

You clearly don't know anything about private schools.
-3800 students from K-12. The class of 2013 has 421 students. That's large, but not too large to be selective.
-Of course you have to make the grade to be accepted, as you do at Andover, Exeter, St. Paul's, etc. Any private school which admits any idiot whose parents can pay isn't very "elite".
-15% of students receive tuition assistance. Most top private schools provide tuition assistance to more like a third of the students. Today's tuition for a day student at Punahou is ~$20K. You're saying 85% of parents can pay this without any assistance.
-President Obama "only" went there from 5th grade through 12th grade. Seven years of private school (out of twelve) is just a "few"?

There are no excuses or rationalizations for poverty in the U.S. It exists because we allow it to exist. This article shows how much misery could be avoided by universal access to health care and a living minimum wage. The right decries welfare and food stamps as creating a culture of dependency. We are indeed creating a new culture. A culture where the opportunity to escape poverty no longer exists except for a lucky few. We are sacrificing the human potential of an entire generation on the alter that someone, somewhere, might get something they don't deserve. It is time for this to end and for us to start helping our fellow Americans succeed instead of holding them down.

Its no longer about "escaping poverty". Its about not falling into it, and once there, getting out again. Look at the US historically and it was usually possible to get back on your feet again. The careers of many successful people were marked by failure, sometimes multiple ones, but then eventually marked by prosperity. That just isn't true any longer. Its a perversion of the ideals of Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln.

Thanks for the comment. I agree with you completely. There will always be the least paid person at the company or the least desirable job that has to be done. I think poverty is less about income than it is about suffering and the assualt on human dignity. No one is immune to the rise and fall of economic fortune. But as you say, there needs to be a baseline, that our fellow citizens will not allow us to fall below, that allows us to maintain our health and retain our dignity. Most people in poverty work, and work hard. But they spend much of their time fighting upstream, before they even get to thier job.

Good questions Hussein. Regarding globalization, go lookup the marked difference between absolute advantage vs. comparative advantage. Then ask yourself which one is faciliated by the political and financial elites in today's globalization. Also, we think of North American and Europe, but some of the very same things are happening among the emirates of the Arabian peninsula. I hope you can comment on this here or another similar article from an educated native perspective.

It is sad to read about the extent of poverty in an economy that was once so mighty. The only thing I can say is that, if the US resusitates its manufacturing sector, it should focus on quality and standards in order to compete because the quality of made-in-China goods is atrocious yet still these goods are found everywhere in the US.

Wal-Mart managed to get the ball rolling with the "cheaper is better" concept (and to hell with quality). You're talking about changing people's mindsets about the products that they buy on a daily basis. If they feel it is "good enough" as opposed to being a superior product, guess what they spend their $$$$ on? This has led to sea-change in all of their other purchases. Sylvania, Curtis-Mathes & others used to make superior TVs too but the funny thing is those companies don't exist any more.

I am not from the USA but my country is flooded with cheap Chinese goods too which waste the world's resources because everywhere people are stealing manhole covers to send scrap to China to make substandard products. But it is a question of pride and if America values its leadership position in the world,its people must lift their eyes from the ground and look upwards.